The communal violence in Rakhine State has drawn the attention of the
international community, including the countries of the Middle East, as
media outside of Myanmar has exposed the plight of Rohingya Muslims in
the north of the state near Bangladesh. The violence subsequently became
an anti-Muslim campaign that received condemnation from governments
around the world. The Myanmar government, which has been widely applauded for its
ongoing reform efforts, is once again on the defensive, as foreign
observers warn that its handling of the Rakhine crisis could deal a
serious blow to those efforts. In response, government officials have
vowed to arrest and punish the culprits behind the unrest—although some
still suspect that pro-government elements were among those directly
involved.
Indeed, the violence in Rakhine has wider implications.
Surin
Pitsuwan, the former secretary-general of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations, has rightly pointed out that there is a risk that the
Rohingya will be radicalized by this latest effort to force them out of
the country. “This would not be good for anyone,” he told The Bangkok Post.
He also warned that any intensification of the communal strife in
Rakhine State would have wider strategic and security implications for
the region. This is true, as the unrest would force refugees to flee
across the border, and so entail serious humanitarian and security
concerns.
The Brussels-based think tank the International Crisis Group has also
said in a new report that the sectarian violence in Rakhine State
threatens national stability and could spread into a wider religious
conflict unless tackled through decisive moral leadership.
Critics, including human rights groups, have accused the government
of mishandling the crisis, noting that some government officials made
extensive use of social media to foment anti-Rohingya sentiment. This
resurgence of racism at a time when Myanmar is supposed to be restoring
democracy and human rights is sad, indeed.
Many native Rakhine regard the Rohingya as foreign interlopers who
have taken advantage of Myanmar’s porous border with Bangladesh to
illegally enter the country. President U Thein Sein, who has been hailed
as a reformist leader, seems to agree with this assessment. At a
meeting with officials from the UN refugee agency UNHCR in June, he
pointedly said that Myanmar would take responsibility for its ethnic
nationalities, “but it is not at all possible to recognize the illegal
border-crossing Rohingyas.”
In this regard, the president’s attitude is not far removed from that
of his predecessor, former dictator Snr-Gen Than Shwe. According to
noted Myanmar scholar Prof David Steinberg, the military junta leader
who handed over power to U Thein Sein in 2011 strongly believed that
Myanmar’s most dangerous frontier region is that shared with Bangladesh.
But this preoccupation with the perceived threat of a “Bengali
invasion” is not limited to military men. Many native Rakhines, who
considered themselves to be devout Buddhists, are convinced that the
only defense against a twin tide of illegal immigrants and Islamists is
to push back hard, with violence if necessary. Such a mindset creates
the ideal conditions for an even more ominous threat—hardliners within
the military seeking to roll back reforms under the cover of restoring
security.
Locally, some Rakhine politicians also appear to be trying to take
advantage of the current turmoil to advance their own interests. But
this is not just an issue for the Rakhine alone: It is also affecting
the political climate of the rest of the country, with many siding with
the president, and more moderate voices sidelined or silenced by
intimidation. Even Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, admired around the world for
her courage in standing up to Myanmar’s military, has been reluctant to
speak out on this issue, earning her some rare criticism from her
international admirers.
When pressed, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate told the BBC World
Service in November: “I am urging tolerance but I do not think one
should use one’s moral leadership, if you want to call it that, to
promote a particular cause without really looking at the sources of the
problems.” Neither she nor her National League for Democracy (NLD) have
visited Rakhine State since the violence began in June.
During her trip to India in November, she appeared to move closer to
the president’s position. Calling the Rohingya issue a “huge
international tragedy,” she implied that Bangladesh should also bear
some responsibility. “Is there a lot of illegal crossing of the border
[with Bangladesh] still going on? We have got to put a stop to it
otherwise there will never be an end to the problem,” she said.
U Ko Ko Gyi, a prominent student leader and former political
prisoner, has said that the 88 Generation Students group, of which he is
a leading member, does not recognize the Rohingya as one of the ethnic
nationalities of Myanmar. If necessary, he said, speaking to local media
soon after the deadly riots between the Rakhine and Rohingya
communities began, he would join the armed forces to drive out the
“Bengalis.”
Coming from someone regarded as a champion of human rights, these
words came as a real shock to many domestic and international
colleagues, as well as diplomats and campaign groups. To put it simply,
he was advocating human rights for all in Myanmar—except the Rohingya.
Since making these remarks, Ko Ko Gyi has been named a member of a
government-appointed commission to investigate the unrest in Rakhine
State. After visiting the state, he said his impression was that the
government had handled the crisis poorly, and that the country’s
citizenship law must be properly settled before peace can return.
However, the commission itself has recently come under criticism for
lacking credibility, after two Muslim members were sacked.
Many of the problems facing the Rohingya in Myanmar today date back
to the 1982 citizenship law introduced by then dictator Ne Win, whose
xenophobic socialist regime decided to exclude this Muslim minority from
the country’s list of 135 recognized ethnic groups. From that time on,
the Rohingya have been officially regarded as migrants from Bangladesh
with no status in Myanmar.
As is generally the case when two countries or cultures meet—and
sometimes collide—the reality is far more complex than the official
stance acknowledges. The Rohingya people settled in the Mayu Frontier
Area—the area now known as Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships in northern
Rakhine State, close to Bangladesh—generations ago.
The seeds of the current conflict were sown during the Second World
War, when the British allowed many migrants from what was then part of
India to come settle in Myanmar. At the time, these Bengali-speaking
migrants were called “Chittagonians.”
“Tensions between Muslim and Buddhist communities were high during
the British rule and communal riots broke out under the Japanese
occupation,” wrote Moshe Yegar, an Israeli diplomat posted in Myanmar in
the 1960s, in a thesis titled “T
he Muslims of Burma.”
Long before the war began, resentment was growing among ethnic
Rakhines over the Zamindari system, under which Bengali migrants were
permitted to hold 90-year leases on the land, effectively making them
landowners who came to dominate agriculture in the region.
Adding to their sense of dispossession, the devoutly Buddhist Rakhine
were also appalled to see the new settlers eagerly establishing mosques
and Islamic schools in their homeland and marrying local women, who
were converted to Islam.
In 1942, when Japanese troops were advancing on Myanmar, the
Rakhines’ pent-up hostility toward the settlers came to a head. “Gangs
of Arakanese [Rakhine] Buddhists in southern Arakan where the Buddhists
were in the majority attacked Muslims villages and massacred
inhabitants. Whole villages were sacked and their inhabitants all
murdered,” writes Yegar in his thesis.
Later, it was the turn of the Muslims to take revenge and mete out
similar punishment to Buddhists living in the north, forcing the
Buddhist Rakhine to flee south. Serious communal violence and massacres
took place in 1942 and 1943, leaving a legacy of bitterness that still
lingers.
“It was in this manner that Arakan became divided into two separate
areas, one Buddhist and the other Muslim,” according to Yegar.
The British, who planned to re-enter Burma from India, armed the
Chittagonians in the Mayu Frontier Area to counter the Japanese forces.
This newly armed group was called simply the “Volunteer Force” or “V
Force.” Its members were to collect information about the movements of
the Japanese and to launch guerrilla attacks against them.
Instability, lawlessness and terror were the order of the day in
Rakhine State at that time. Ethnic Rakhines alleged that members of the V
Force committed attacks against Rakhine villages and destroyed Buddhist
temples.
Then, after the war, and after Myanmar regained its independence from
Britain, Rakhine faced a new threat—the Mujahid rebellion. Although
this was an Islamist movement, some communists and Rakhine rebels joined
forces with the Mujahids, after reaching an agreement with them to
split Rakhine once the government of Prime Minister U Nu had been
defeated.
Under U Nu, several military campaigns (most famously, “Operation
Monsoon”) were launched to push out the Mujahids. The final assault, led
by then Brig-Gen Aung Gyi, who recently passed away in Yangon, came in
1961. According to Rakhine academics, the goal of the rebellion had been
to create a separate Muslim state to be known as “Arakistan.”
Throughout the 1950s, there was also a campaign by the Rohingya to
have the northern part of Rakhine State declared an autonomous region,
directly administered by the central government in Yangon and without
any involvement with Rakhine officials or any Rakhine influence
whatsoever.
There was also a corresponding campaign to deny Rakhine statehood.
According to Yegar: “In July 1961, the Rohinga [sic] Youth Association
held a meeting in Rangoon [to call on] the government of U Nu not to
grant the status of state to Arakan because community tensions still
existed between Muslims and Buddhists since the 1942 riots.”
The government subsequently set up the Mayu Frontier Association
(MFA), which was administered by army officers, but not granted
autonomy. Since it was not placed under Rakhine jurisdiction, however,
the arrangement was accepted by Rohingya leaders.
However, the issue of the status of the Rohingya and demands for
Muslim autonomy did not die down. This did not go down well with the
Rakhine, who suspected that the Bengalis—as they continue to call the
Rohingya—wanted to annex the MFA to then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.
Rakhine scholars have long argued that the term “Rohingya” only
entered mainstream Myanmar political discourse in the 1950s. However,
Western scholars and early foreign travelers to Myanmar have said that
the name has existed at least since the 19th century.
In any case, by the 1960s, it was, in one form or another, generally
accepted as the designation for the Muslims of northern Rakhine State.
Yegar cites this passage from the May 1960 issue of the Yangon-based
Guardian Monthly as evidence of its entry into common parlance: “Today,
the Arakanese Muslims call themselves Rohinga or Roewengyah.”
The Rohingya issue and conflict in Rakhine State will not go away
easily. It is a well-known fact that Myanmar’s Muslim suffers
discrimination, and that the Rohingya are particularly persecuted.
Since there has been no real effort to integrate the Muslim
population, including the Rohingya or Bengalis, into mainstream Myanmar
society, it seems almost certain that sectarian violence will continue
to plague the country’s western gate.
Critics of the government say that it needs to revisit Myanmar’s
citizenship laws and immigration policies to deter an influx of migrants
from neighboring countries. It could begin by studying the refugee and
asylum policies of other nations. But above all, it must rely on rule of
law, rather than force, to restore order along Myanmar’s western
frontier. Failure to address this issue properly could deal a
devastating blow to this country’s hard-won progress in opening to the
outside world.
This story first appeared in the December 2012 print issue of The Irrawaddy magazine.
Related Posts Responses to Disquiet on the Western Front
Ne Win,Saw Maung,Than Shwe and Thien Sein
– all these army dictators do not have any right to touch the 1948
constitution . All these guys introduced some black laws in the name
constitutions, citizenship law etc. The country has been run under so
called black laws and dictators’ choice constitution since 1962. Every
political activist and dissidents know about this big short coming.
Un till and unless this so called black laws and dictatorial rule are
annulled and,the real rule of law is restored ,non of the ethnic
problems including Rohingya and Kachin can be sloved.
Maung Kyaw Nu,a former political prisoner of conscience,President of Burmese Rohingya Association in Thailand(BRAT) 
Displaced Rohingya children at the edge of Camp Coconut. Photo: Steve Sandford
If he can’t he must have to step dawn from the post.
Why Daw Suu is silence ?Is she felt under the boots of Military ??Is that her way of restoration Democracy and peace by ignoring Kachin ??